How is an Aquarium like Organizational Culture?

Arthur Carmazzi coming to you from the Dubai Aquarium

Let’s look at an aquarium, as well an ecosystem. If you have the pH wrong, if you have too much salt, if you have the wrong fish, if you basically have the wrong mix, well, basically, something is definitely going to go wrong with your aquarium. And corporate culture is basically exactly the same thing. In organizational culture, if you have the wrong people, well, it definitely can go wrong. If you have the wrong pH or possibly the wrong policies, something can go wrong. If the leader is not in line with the organizational culture that you are trying to achieve, well, that can go wrong.

An organizational culture, just like an aquarium, must be consistently kept up on a daily basis. If it isn’t cleaned, if we don’t maintain it, if we don’t feed the fish in the right way, on a regular basis, well, we’re going to have a big mess on our hands. And feeding the aquarium is equally important as feeding the corporate culture. What do you feed it? Are you feeding it negativity? Are you feeding it why things are going wrong? Or are you feeding it the potential, the purpose, the end result of what everyone in the organization is being valued for? Are you showing the value of the people within the organization? Are you feeding it with consistent, positive, progress, instead of looking at what everybody’s doing wrong, or what’s going wrong, and why people are not being valued?

How you’re feeding your organizational culture is basically going to affect how it is sustainable. And, of course, it’s the same thing with an aquarium: if you don’t sustain an aquarium, if you don’t feed it, it will die.